


I'm Not Okay

by orphan_account



Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Anxiety, Depression, Gen, Suicide Attempt, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-06
Updated: 2014-01-06
Packaged: 2018-01-07 19:16:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1123398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’s fine. Genius, heir to billions, a little bit of a player, a spoiled brat, and absolutely fine. So fine, in fact, that he’s hiding behind a shower curtain with his head between his knees. He’s shaking like a leaf and wondering how many over-the-counter painkillers he’d have to chase with cheap alcohol to avoid waking up ever again, but completely and utterly fine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm Not Okay

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, this is a bit darker then what I normally write? I don't know much about alcohol or parties, but I can tell you quite a bit about being 'fine' and I'm hoping I did a good job of describing how Tony feels. Heads up, he thinks about suicide. If that's not going to be a good thing for you to read about please don't.

He’s fine. Genius, heir to billions, a little bit of a player, a spoiled brat, and absolutely fine. So fine, in fact, that he’s hiding behind a shower curtain with his head between his knees. He’s shaking like a leaf and wondering how many over-the-counter painkillers he’d have to chase with cheap alcohol to avoid waking up ever again, but completely and utterly fine.

Tony Stark was rich and famous enough to garner invites to every party thrown by his classmates. This is the first one he’s gone to in quite a while, but he’s not building bridges or socializing with the up and coming one percent as his father might hope. No, Tony Stark is trying to reconnect with reality. As apathetic as he’s been feeling lately, the side of his brain not idly debating the pros and cons of simply jumping off a building had figured that drowning in noise and surprisingly cheap booze for the children of zillionaires would be just the thing to cheer him up.

He did like noise. Nothing ever good came from silence, and the pounding bass resonating from downstairs is anything but. Having downed his fair share of shoddy liquor at past parties and only feeling worse for his troubles, Tony had sworn off alcohol. Then he’d gotten a fake ID and spent his evenings passed out on his own couch as opposed to someone else’s. Now he got even shakier without a bit of alcohol to steady him. Wave of anxiety over, he unscrews the cap to his water bottle and takes a drink. It’s vodka, not water, which is fine. Everything is fine.

And then he hears the faint sound of police sirens, because obviously things couldn’t get any finer. He swears, staggering to his feet. Then, because he’s never been one for good decisions and alcohol doesn’t improve his thought process, he pries the window open. It doesn’t take much force to knock the screen out. Tony peers into the darkness outside, levers himself onto the ledge, and promptly falls out. 

Even head first a five foot drop into a bush isn’t enough to seriously injure him. He lies there though, listening to the sirens screech closer. There’s a lot of yelling when the police finally arrive. Someone pukes as their led out in handcuffs. Words like ‘underage’ and ‘narcotics’ are thrown around quite a bit. Tony debates showing himself. He’s fairly sober, but he won’t want to be when his father finds out. Then again, it happens to be a cold night and a long walk back to the boarding school that’s been his home for a decade.  
A light shining in his eyes saves him the trouble of deciding. “You okay, kid?” the voice accompanying the light asks.

“I’m hiding,” Tony replies sarcastically, “Don’t tell the cops.”

Hands drag him to his feet. “You are the only sober person I’ve ever found in a bush.”

Tony manufactures a smirk. “Glad I could be your first.”

His heart isn’t into it and the woman can tell. “I’m going to need you to blow.”

Tony raises his eyebrows suggestively, but obeys. The cop gives him a flat look and he shrugs. “I’m not legally drunk.”

“You’re not legally allowed to have a blood alcohol level above zero-point-zero, honey,” she informs him.

“The press will have a field day if anyone finds out I got arrested and then my father will have a heart attack planning my murder and then I’ll be an orphan but at least I’ll be alive, but on the down side I won’t get any money until I’m twenty-one and that will really be a pain, see I’ve gotten used to a certain standard of living and I don’t think I’ll survive like the rest of you peasants” Tony says, giving her a multi-million-dollar smile.

The cop sighs. “You don’t look like the party type.”

Tony smiles and tries to look innocent. Personally he’s pretty sure that he looks like the party type. Maybe not having a beer in one hand and a girl in the other ruins his image. “I just need a ride back to my apartment.”

She looks at him sharply. “I’m taking you to your parents or arresting you.”

“It’s a long drive to New York City, and traffic is a bitch,” he says. “I really would rather not be arrested though, so we should get going if we want to get there before my father leaves for work and my mother is drunk.”

“You can’t possibly be a college kid,” the cop looks a little suspicious. 

“MIT, baby,” Tony tells her, grinning cockily. 

“You can’t be more then fourteen!” she exclaims.

“Sixteen,” he corrects sulkily, unsure if she's exaggerating to upset him or if he genuinely looks that young.

She sighs. “Your daddy is Howard Stark.”

“He prefers ‘father’ or ‘sir’, actually. And he’s going to skin me alive if he finds out I’ve been drinking. I’ll get a whole lecture on how I’m just like my mother and not nearly as good at being a fucking human being as he is,” Tony informs her.

“He seems like an ass on TV,” she concedes, smiling a little.

Tony grins. “You should meet him.”

She sighs again. “Where’s your apartment?”

Tony hugs her. “Thank you,” and he means it, glancing at her nametag, “Thank you, Officer Potts.”

A week later that same cop is sitting in the hospital with him. “What the hell were you thinking?” 

Tony groans. “My nose itches.”

“You should have thought about that before—”

“Before I tried to kill myself?” he offers. “Yeah, you know, my last thought before I passed out was, God I hope I took enough pills, it’s going to really fucking suck if I fucked up the dosage and don’t actually die. I mean, I’ll be strapped to a hospital bed and unable to scratch my own fucking nose. Who the fuck wants to live like that?”

She sighs. She does a lot of that, Tony’s noticed. He has that effect on people. “Your mother was here for a bit before you woke up.”

“Sober?” Tony asks, surprised, “What a fucking miracle.”

Potts is silent for a minute. “No. She was pretty out of it. Security threw her out when she started shouting.”

Tony nods. “Now that sounds like the woman I know and avoid as often as possible.”

“Your father sent a get well soon card,” Potts offers.

“Is it signed in actual ink or is it one of the ones he prints of for business associates when they get sick?” Tony inquires. 

He receives a nasty look. “Relationships aren’t a one-sided thing. You need to put in a little bit of effort too.”

“I send cards,” Tony tells her bitingly. 

He’s unable to get up and slam the door behind him. He can’t even roll over dramatically, so he shuts his eyes and resolves to ignore her.

“I have a daughter your age,” she says, and soon Tony knows almost everything there is to know about Officer Potts’ daughter, Virginia.  
She sounds like the type of girl you would marry, Tony thinks, not really his type. Then he falls asleep and stops having to pretend. 

 

Tony gets better. He spends three weeks in the adolescent wing of a psych ward and emerges a different man. He’s on so many mood stabilizers, anti-depressants, and sedatives that he’s pretty sure he doesn’t actually have a personality. It’s better than the alternative though, so he keeps taking them.

He opens a bank account for the Potts family. Officer Potts won’t have to worry about retirement and Virginia won’t have to worry about paying for college. It’s the least he can do.

He gets his master degree at nineteen and goes to work for his father. Howard Stark is a much better employer than parent.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy ending, there you go :)


End file.
